You have finished your Open Water Course and discovered that the little diving bug in side you has grown and you are now looking for your next underwater adventure. The PADI Advanced Open Water Diver Course (AOW) is the next step.
This course focuses on the practical elements of diving from identifying marine life to navigating around a dive site, the advanced course has something for everyone. And the best news is that you can tailor this course to suit your own interests and to your favourite dive sites.
During Dive HQ Westhaven’s most recent AOW course they took our students to complete their course at the Poor Knights Marine Reserve. Day 1 saw them complete the Underwater Naturalist Dive where they saw plenty including kingfish, schools of blue mao mao and even a couple of Moray Eels. They then changed locations and completed the Peak performance Buoyancy Dive and Boat Dive on one of the brilliant wall sites. There is nothing like completing your Peak Performance Buoyancy dive while diving along a wall with heaps of colour from the impressive Sponge life.
Day 2 started the same as day one, but the excitement level was incredibly high as they set off to complete everyone’s first Deep Dive. Descending down the boat’s mooring line and heading deeper along the reef until they found the sandy bottom at 29m. The divers compared the colours of some of Hannah’s bath toys and compared the readings of different depth gauges. They then proceeded to slowly explore the reef and ended the dive completing their safety stop surrounded by a massive school of fish.
The last dive saw them complete the Underwater Navigator Dive, which saw Hannah sending the students to swim the biggest square she had ever assigned as the visibility was so amazing that she didn’t want them to see their starting point. The group was joined by a couple of stingrays to top off an amazing AOW course.
Each store offers a range of different adventure dives to best suit the needs and wishes of their divers. The course is also very flexible and can be run over a single weekend or you can choose to spread it out over several weeks. If you are joining Dive HQ on a trip then ask about the adventure dives you could include alongside your planned dives.
Here in Wellington we can offer the following adventures:
Altitude Diver, AWARE – Fish Identification, Boat Diver, Deep Diver, Digital Underwater Photographer, Dive Against Debris, Diver Propulsion Vehicle Diver, Drift Diver, Enriched Air, Night Diver, Peak Performance Buoyancy, Search and Recovery Diver, Sidemount Diver, Underwater Naturalist, Underwater Navigator, and Wreck Diver
As an Instructor, the Advanced Open water Diver Courses are some of our favourite to teach because everyone who joins up is there for the same reason, more diving experiences and fun times and the groups always bond well.
Spend $100 in store anytime during the month of September to go in the draw!